Charting Cumbo Migration Patterns

In a previous post I explored the origins of the name Cumbo and uncovered its beginnings in Africa and Italy.  In this post I will explore Cumbo residence and migration patterns in the United States over time.  Ancestry.com offers a great surname mapping tool that lets a user map where in the US people with a family surname of interest lived over time (1840, 1880 and 1920) which might provide insight into migration patterns.  Since Cumbo is such a unique name descendants of which can be largely attributed to Emanuell Cambow born in Angola and lived in Jamestown starting in the 17th century and perhaps some European immigrants from the early 20th century,  it makes it possible to tease out Cumbo family migration patterns over time.

Cumbo 1840

In 1840 the Cumbos were still concentrated in Virginia where the first Cumbos of the New World lived in Colonial Times. By 1840 they’d moved south into North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee, the land of the Melungeons.   My Cumbo ancestors were living in Northampton County, North Carolina at this time.  My 5th great grandfather Britton Cumbo Sr. appears in the 1820 and 1830 census of Northampton as head of a Free Colored household.  He passed away around 1837 so was not counted in the 1840 census.  His son, my 4th great grandfather Britton Cumbo Jr., was apprenticed as an oprhan to a man named Jesse Morgan of Northampton County.  So he would have been part of the Morgan household at this time and wouldn’t have been counted as a Cumbo household.  So his Cumbo relatives make up the Cumbo count in North Carolina in 1840.

Cumbo 1840

Cumbo 1880

By 1880 the Cumbos were concentrated in North Carolina and had migrated south west to Texas and west to states as far as California.

CUmbo 1880

Cumbo 1920

By 1920 Cumbos continued to spread across the country.  The presence of Cumbos in Northern states such New York and the Midwest may be attributable to The Great Migration, the historical movement of African Americans out of the Southeastern United States to the Midwest, Northeast and West from approximately 1915 to 1970.  It could also reflect Cumbos from Italy immigrating to the United States for the first time.

CUmbo 1920

I encourage you to check out the tool which can be found here:

http://www.ancestry.com/learn/facts/

Plug in the Cumbo surname derivative for your family.  The most common Cumbo derivatives are Cumbee, Cumber, Cumbie and Cumby.  Review the maps for 1840, 1880 and 1920.  Share what you uncover as patterns or insights in the comments section of this post.

 

Were the Cumbos Melungeon?

The origins of the American Melungeon have always been considered mysterious.

Melungeons are generally known as a group of families from relatively unknown but likely diverse origins who share a set of common surnames such as Collins, Gibson, Mullins, Goins, and Bunch, and who lived in the Appalachian region of the United States including portions of East Tennessee, Southwest Virginia, and eastern Kentucky during the 19th and 20th centuries.

Many famous Americans are speculated to have descended from the Melungeons including President Abraham Lincoln, Elvis Presley and Tom Hanks.  Ethnically, Melungeons are generally considered white, but with an asterisk, due to their mysterious origins and exotic variations in their appearance – dark hair, swarthy or olive complexions, and non-European features.  These looks have led some to speculate that the origins of Melungeons were Moorish, Portuguese, Turkish, Persian, Middle Eastern, Gypsy, Greek and even Native American.

But what are the true origins of their diverse background?  A broad DNA study on Melungeons concluded that they were a tri-racial population primarily of mixed European, African and Native American ancestry.  These conclusions have led many researchers to categorize Melungeons as one of many “tri-racial isolate” groups that have been identified across the Southeastern United States.  Here’s a previous blog post which includes a complete listing of these tri-isolate groups.

Their history as a tri-racial isolate group dates back to colonial Virginia and the Carolinas and the first Africans to arrive in Jamestown in the 1600s.  Africans from Angola were brought on Portuguese slave ships intended for South America and the Caribbean.  Some ships were pirated and re-directed to Jamestown.  Since their arrival pre-dated the establishment of institutional slavery, many of the Africans who landed in Jamestown served as indentured servants not chattel slaves, and were freed after an obligatory period of service.  The African men went on to establish free communities, own land and start families, intermarrying with European women who may have served with them side by side as fellow indentured servants as well as Native American women. These communities of mixed blood, free families stuck together, migrating south and west over the course of the 18th century in pursuit of land grants and to escape oppressive laws restricting the rights and freedoms of people of color across the South. This migration likely explains how Melungeons settled into Appalachia.

The Cumbos were one of these original colonial, tri-racial families, originating with the first documented Cumbo in the New World, Emanuell Cambow.  Tim Hashaw in his article MALUNGU: The African Origin of the American Melungeons lists Cumbo as one of core surnames of the Angolan ancestors of Melungeons in early 17th century Virginia, Maryland, Delaware and Carolina.

1620’s: Carter, Cornish, Dale/Dial, Driggers, Gowen/Goins, Johnson, Longo, Mongom/Mongon, Payne

1630’s: Cane, Davis, George, Hartman, Sisco, Tann, Wansey

1640’s: Archer, Kersey, Mozingo, Webb

1650’s: Cuttillo, Jacobs, James

1660’s: Beckett, Bell, Charity, Cumbo, Evans, Francis, Guy, Harris, Jones,Landum/Landrum, Lovina/Leviner, Moore, Nickens, Powell, Shorter, Tate, Warrick/Warwick

Tim Hashaw explores the African origin of the Melungeon in greater detail in his book “The Birth of Black America”.  He theorizes that the term Melungeon has origins in Africa and asserts that the term “Malungu” is the earliest word to mean African American.  Over time it would be Anglicized by Colonial America into the word “Melungeon”

The word was malungu and, for those Mbundu [Angolan] prisoners who survived the middle passage, it came to signify “Comrades who came over the sea from the same homeland in the same ship.”  It is the earliest word to mean “African American”.

I find the history of the American Melungeon, and my Cumbo family’s role in this history, quite fascinating so I continue to research this topic to learn as much as I can.  I’ve consumed both of Hashaw’s books on the Melungeon.  Next up on my reading list is Brent Kennedy’s “The Melungeons: The Resurrection of a Proud People”.  I appreciate any suggestions on this topic that readers of this blog are willing to share in the comments section of this post.

Melungeons

My Cumbo Ancestry Video

About a year ago the Ancestry products team reached out to me and invited me to record a testimonial video for a chance to star in an Ancestry TV spot.  I thought I had an interesting story to tell so I figured, why not?  So I submitted.  Well, unfortunately I was not selected be featured in a commercial.  But I want to share the testimonial video I submitted.

Here it is:

My Ancestry Testimonial Video on YouTube

The video captures the amazing journey of discovery I’ve had the pleasure of travelling, working to uncover the story of my Cumbo ancestry. It’s so exciting to think that the family reunion I referenced when creating this video will be happening this July 15-17, 2016 in Williamsburg, VA.   Details can be found here.

Since recording the testimonial, I’ve learned to be highly cautious in relying on those little green ancestry hint leaves to build my tree back, particularly if those hints are coming from public trees built by Ancestry users and are not backed up by evidence from Ancestry’s vast historical collection of digitized historical records.  On the evening I describe in the video, public tree powered tree hints helped me to map my ancestry back to Emanuell Cambow.  The problem is that many of those connections are not well documented.  I have high confidence in my Cumbo lineage all the way back to Britton Cumbo Sr. who was born between 1776 and 1794 and who lived his life in Northampton County, North Carolina.  But my confidence in my lineage starting from Britton Cumbo Sr. and working my back to Emanuell Cambow is much less certain. So my research is driven by a goal to build a fully validated pedigree from Britton Cumbo Sr. back to Emanuell Cambow.

Cumbo Video

Were the Cumbos Portuguese?

My Cumbo ancestors migrated to Northampton County NC at the turn of the 19th century likely from Virginia.  Census records tracked them starting in 1820, as free colored, which then morphed over the next 100 years to mulatto then black then Negro.

DNA testing has helped me to connect with more distant Cumbo relatives.  My family and I have a handful of DNA matches who descend from a woman named Mary Polly Cumbo, born around 1800 of Robeson, North Carolina Cumbos. She married Allen Lowry and is the mother of Henry Berry Lowry, a historical American figure and leader of the Lowry War who is considered by many as a pioneer in the fight for Native American civil rights and tribal self-determination.

I had the pleasure of connecting with one Cumbo cousin DNA match who directly descends from Mary Polly Cumbo of Robeson NC.  In our initial correspondence he wrote to me, “I’d always been told that the Cumbos were Portuguese.”

This got me wondering how the Cumbos came to be known as Portuguese.  Here’s what I’ve uncovered so far:

1. The Cumbos were identified as tri racial. I’ve referended the mixed race origins of the Cumbos in a previous blog post. The article “Origins of the Lumbee” by S. Pony Hill says the following about Cumbo “Portuguese” origins:

Throughout the 1800’s, and across three states, this tri-racial identifier has been used by the mixed-blood families to explain physical features their white neighbors attempted to classify as resulting from Negro ancestry. For the most part the Lumbee and related families claimed to be solely of Indian-White mixture, but would occasionally claim Portuguese ancestry to justify non-Indian and non-White characteristics such as bushy hair, thick lips, etc. Polly Cumbaa was described as a “Portuguese woman” while married to Allen Lowry in Robeson.

2. Cumbos possibly descended from Portuguese slaves. Emanuell Cambow, a common ancestor for many Cumbos in America, according to Tim Hashaw’s book “The Birth of Black America”, was likely brought to the New World on a Portuguese slave ship sailing from Angola.  Other Cumbos were believed to come the same way.  According to “Origins of the Lumbee”:

The shorelines of the Chesapeake Bay area in Virginia appears to be area from which this Portuguese bloodline sprung, including Nothampton, York, and Surry Counties. Being identified as Portuguese during this era almost assuredly implies that these individuals were already mixed-blooded before settling foot on American soil. Portuguese slaves in the early 1600’s were most often a myriad of racial backgrounds, including Brazilian Natives, Canary Islanders, Mediterranean Arabs, East Indians, and of course West Coast Africans.

Perhaps over time being descended from Portuguese slaves morphed into family oral history that Cumbos descended from Portuguese.

3. Adopting a Portuguese identity offered the Cumbos a way to pass as white to avoid racial oppression in America. Racial passing occurs when a person classified as a member of one racial group is also accepted as a member of a different racial group.  According to Tim Hashaw’s book “Children of Perdition” on Melungeons like the Cumbos he wrote:

So in the early 1840s, just before Melungeons became “Portuguese”, racism had begun feeding on a new fear: mixing, once a social disgrace, was suddenly also biological suicide.  This new fear left Melungeons facing slow extinction.  A small community needs outside marriage to avoid inbreeding, and illegal mixing had gone on for decades.  Suddenly even sympathetic whites feared their own racial extinction.

Hashaw asserts that Melungeon families like the Cumbos across the American South adopted Portuguese identities as strategy to prove European ancestry and avoid oppressive jim crow and anti-miscegenation laws.

All of these factors have likely contributed to the claim of Cumbos as Portuguese. I’ve not uncovered any DNA studies that have validated a Cumbo genetic link to the Portuguese. A broader DNA study on Melungeons uncovered no genetic connection between Melungeons and the Portuguese and in fact seemed to draw similar conclusions to Hashaw.  Claims of Portuguese ancestry likely were a strategy used to remain free and retain other privileges that came with being considered white.

Establishing a Cumbo connection to the Portuguese in my estimation will require more extensive DNA study of Cumbo descendants.   This could be a very interesting and certainly challenging project for researchers.

Children of Perdition

The Origins of the Name Cumbo

Cumbo is a very unique sounding name.  It stands out from the traditionally Anglo names associated with the first inhabitants of Jamestown.  The origins of the name have been highly speculated.  Is the name from Portugal?  Spain?  Italy? Based on what I’ve been able to uncover, the surname Cumbo has origins in Africa as well as Southern Europe.

According to Tim Hashaw in his book, “The Birth of Black America”, the Cumbo surname is associated with Angolans who arrived in Jamestown in the early 17th century.  He asserts that Cumbo is possibly derived from Kambol, a royal name of Ndongo.  The Kingdom of Ndongo, the possible birthplace of Emanuell Cambow, is the name of a sixteenth century African state located in modern day Angola. It was one of a number of vassal states to Kongo that existed in the region, though Ndongo was the most powerful of these with a king called the Ngola.

Here is a second connection I found linking the name to Angola.  While navigating a Google Map of Angola, I was able to locate a village in the north of the country named Cumbo.  This could be another potential source of the name.

https://www.google.com/maps/place/Cumbo,+Angola/@-6.5676276,14.046688,9z/data=!4m2!3m1!1s0x1a44118fa728be1f:0x44f27bede25fba27

According to Ancestry.com, the surname Cumbo also has origins in Southern Italy:

Cumbo Name Meaning

Southern Italian (Sicily): nickname from medieval Greek kombos ‘deception’, ‘trick’, or from southern dialect kombo ‘knot’ (from medieval Greek kombos ‘tie’, ‘bond’).

I’m sure there are some people in America who have the last name Cumbo because their family immigrated from Italy over the last 100-150 years. I also believe that many Cumbos in America today have their name because of the Angolans who inhabited Jamestown in the Colonial period of America. Perhaps over generations, family members were told that they were Italian or Portuguese to explain why they had such a unique sounding name,  but no one in the family was ever really certain of their family name’s true origins. Over time and generations in America, variations of the surname have expanded to Cumba, Cumbaa, Cumbee, Cumby, Cumbia, Cumboe, Cumbow, Combo, Cumber, even McCumbee. But for many, if you are able to trace far enough back, it likely began as Kambol from the Kingdom of Ndongo.

The Cumbos as mixed race people

According to Tim Hashaw’s book “The Birth of Black America: The First African Americans and the Pursuit of Freedom at Jamestown”:

The African Cumbo family first appeared in Jamestown documents in September 1644 and they, too, survived and traveled far from the colony over many generations.  That year, the Virginia House of Burgesses ruled Manuel Cambow was a Christian Servant and ordered that he was to serve as other Christians in indenture.  He was freed in September 1665 and, two years later, was granted fifty acres in James City County.

Emanuell Cambow’s descendants lived on as free people of color and intermarried with whites and Native Americans throughout the Virginia and coastal North Carolina areas through the colonial period of America. As a result, over successive generations, many Cumbo family branches either maintained black or mixed race identities, passed as white (Melungeon or Portuguese) or fully embraced Native American (Lumbee or Tuscarora) identities.

Included in the link below is a list of  17th century Mixed Blood families from which Most Mixed Ethnic Groups, of Early Virginia Records descend.

See the Cumbos in the following sections:  “Common Mixed Blood Surname List” (black/mixed race) and “Melungeon and Melungeon-related surnames” (white)  and “Lumbee/Croatan Indian” (Native American). Cumba, Cumbaa, Cumbee, Cumbo, Cumboe, Cumbow

Ethnic Racial Isolates: Mixed Blood Surnames

My Ancestral Pilgrimage to Northampton, NC

My Cumbo ancestors settled into Northampton County, North Carolina at the turn of the Nineteenth Century.  Here is a travelogue of my trip to Northampton in October 2015.

I was inspired to take this trip by the memory of my maternal grandparents. For much of my life all I knew was that they were from Suffolk, VA. Through family research I learned that my grandfather’s Cumbo ancestors were from Northampton County, North Carolina.

Travelogue 01

I descend from the Cumbos of Northampton NC through my great grandmother Annie Biggs.  Her parents, my great great grandparents were Edward Biggs of Bertie County, North Carolina and Elizabeth Florence Cumbo of Northampton, North Carolina. The Cumbos were free people of color, meaning they were not enslaved.

Travelogue 03

Here I am entering into Northampton County, NC for the first time in my life. Saturday Oct 10, 2015, Northampton NC border

Travelogue 02

The county seat for Northampton County is Jackson. Saturday Oct 10, 2015, Jackson, Northampton NC.

Travelogue 04

First stop, the memorial library for some research. Very nice place. The librarians were very friendly and helpful. Saturday Oct 10, 2015 Jackson, Northampton, NC.

Travelogue 05

I found this is a great resource for those researching free people of color in North Carolina. Saturday Oct 10, 2015, Northampton Memorial Library.

Heinegg

Cumbos descend from Emanuell Cambow (Cumbo), an African born in Angola in 1614 and who was brought to Jamestown, VA.  According to this book, by 1667 he was free and was granted 50 acres in James City. Saturday Oct 10, 2015, Northampton Memorial Library.

Travelogue 06

Next moved on to the Northampton County Museum.  The staff was very helpful. When I mentioned that I descended from Cumbos they pointed out that the name had origins in Africa. I was impressed. Saturday Oct 10, 2015, Northampton County Museum.

Travelogue 07

I was pleasantly surprised to find an exhibit at the museum on one of my ancestral relatives, Dr. Manassas Thomas Pope (1858- 1934), a Northampton native, Shaw University graduate, military officer during the Spanish American War and successful surgeon. He made American to run for Mayor of Raleigh, North Carolina at the history as the first African turn of the century. Saturday Oct 10, 2015, Northampton County Museum.

Travelogue 08

From the museum I’m headed to Rich Square, Northampton, North Carolina which is where my Cumbo ancestors lived.

Travelogue 10

The museum gave me this trusty map of Northampton County which I used throughout the weekend.

Travelogue 11

Here I am on Cumbo Road in Northampton County NC where my Cumbo ancestors lived and owned land as free people of color in the 1800s. Oct 10, 2015, Rich Square, Northampton, NC.

Travelogue 12

Now on my way to Cumbo Baptist Church. Oct 10, 2015, Rich Square, Northampton, NC.

Travelogue 13

Cumbo Chapel Baptist Church. According to recorded church history, Cumbo Chapel was named after my great-great-great grandfather Junius Matthias “Bugg” Cumbo who donated the land on which the church was built. Saturday, Oct 10, 2015, Rich Square, Northampton, NC.

Travelogue 14

It’s been a long and fulfilling road of family discovery since reading the name Cumbo printed on a family tree my cousin developed back in 2001. I’ve uncovered a lot about my family’s Cumbo ancestry since then, but one thing always eluded me. Why was the family location listed on the family tree as “Pulty Casey” North Carolina? Now I know why. It’s was really Potecasi.

Travelogue 15

Start of day two. Planning a few final stops before I make my way back home. Oct 11, 2015, Suffolk, VA.

Travelogue 16

This is representative of the sights I took in all weekend. Farmland. Evidently there’s lots of cotton being grown in Northampton and Hertford right now. Oct 11, 2015, Conway, NC.

Travelogue 17

Cumbo cemetery. This is the tomb for my 1st cousin 4 times removed Henry T Cumbo (1865-1945). Oct 11, 2015, Conway, NC.

Travelogue 18

Passed the Historic Northampton County Court House on my way home.   Oct 11, 2015, Jackson, NC.

Travelogue 19

Home sweet Home.  October 11, 2015, Washington DC.

Travelogue 20

The Origins of Emanuell Cambow

Tim Hashaw in his book “The Birth of Black America: The First African Americans and the Pursuit of Freedom at Jamestown” makes reference to the origins of Emanuell Cambow and his Cumbo descendants.

In the book he writes the following in reference to the origins of Emanuell Cambow and his Cumbo descendants in Colonial America:

The African Cumbo family first appeared in Jamestown documents in September 1644 and they, too, survived and traveled far from the colony over many generations.  That year, the Virginia House of Burgesses ruled Manuel Cambow was a Christian Servant and ordered that he was to serve as other Christians in indenture.  He was freed in September 1665 and, two years later, was granted fifty acres in James City County, near the free black Mihill Gowen, son of John Graweere and Margaret Cornish.  In the papers that recorded the land patent, Cambow was described as a Negro.  Several clues indicate that Manuel Cambow was a Bantu from Angola.  First, Cambo (possibly derived from Kambol, a royal name of Ndongo) was an African with a Christian Portuguese name who appeared in Jamestown between 1619 and 1650, when West India Company records show that virtually all of the three hundred or so Africans in Jamestown were being brought to the colony by Protestant  pirates raiding Portuguese and Spanish slave ships sailing from Luanda, Angola.  Second a few generations later, to escape laws restricting rights of black Americans, Manuel Cambow’s descendants were telling census takers that they were Portuguese.  Third his descendants merged quickly and easily into the Angolan malangu communities in Jamestown and married into the free families of Collinses, Driggers, Gowens, Hammonds, and Matthews.

Hashaw

 

Emanuell Cambow of Jamestown, VA

Here is what we know about Emanuell Cambow based on the book “Free African Americans of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Maryland and Delaware” by Paul Heinegg.

1.    Emanuell1 Cambow, “Negro,” was granted a patent for 50 acres in James City County on 18 April 1667 [Patents 6:39]. He may have been the “Mulata named Manuel” who was adjudged to be a Christian servant by the Virginia Assembly in September 1644. He was ordered to serve as other Christian servants and freed in September 1665 [VMHB XVII:232]. He was probably the father of

2     i. Richard1, born say 1667.

 

The book Free African Americans can be found online at: http://www.freeafricanamericans.com

Heinegg